Maude Apatow

Maude Annabelle Apatow (born December 15, 1997) is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Lexi Howard in the HBO drama series Euphoria (2019–present).

The elder daughter of filmmaker Judd Apatow and actress Leslie Mann, Apatow began her career as a child actress playing the daughter of her mother's characters in her father's films Knocked Up (2007), Funny People (2009), and This Is 40 (2012). Later film roles have included Assassination Nation (2018) and The King of Staten Island (2020), as well as the Netflix miniseries Hollywood (2020).

She was the subject of the original tweet that originated the term "nepo baby" and her career has long been subject to much criticism surrounding nepotism.

Early life and education
Apatow's mother is actress Leslie Mann and her father is director, producer, and screenwriter Judd Apatow. Her father's family is Jewish, whereas her maternal great-grandmother was of Finnish ancestry. She has a younger sister, Iris Apatow, who is also an actress. She attended the Crossroads School, a private school in Santa Monica, California. Maude also attended Interlochen Arts Camp in Interlochen, Michigan. In high school, Apatow appeared in musicals such as Cabaret and Into the Woods. She studied theatre at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, but dropped out after her sophomore year.

2005-2015: Career beginnings and comedies
Apatow began acting at the age of seven with a role in her father Judd Apatow's 2005 comedy film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, though her scenes ultimately did not make the film's final cut. She then appeared in the 2007 film Knocked Up, which was also written, produced, and directed by her father. She and her younger sister Iris Apatow played Sadie and Charlotte, respectively, the daughters of their real-life mother Leslie Mann's character. She again appeared alongside her sister as the daughter of Mann's character in her father's 2009 film Funny People, playing the role of Mable. Apatow reprised her Knocked Up role in the 2012 spin-off sequel This Is 40, starring Mann and Paul Rudd's characters. For her performance in the film as Sadie, Apatow was nominated for the 2012 Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Young Actress and the 2013 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actress.

After joining Twitter, Apatow was noted to have a large online following, which helped her become a contributor to Zooey Deschanel's website Hello Giggles as a writer and interviewer. Her work on the site as well as her acting roles earned her a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2012. Apatow's Twitter account was named one of the "Best Twitter Feeds of 2013" by Time magazine. In 2015, Apatow played an audience member in the film Pitch Perfect 2. That same year, she also recurred in the fourth season of the HBO comedy series Girls as Cleo. She appeared in three episodes of the series, on which her father was an executive producer.

2015-present: Euphoria and stage debut
Apatow appeared as Alexandra Mulcahey in the 2016 comedy-drama film Other People, which was her first large role in a film not involving her father. In 2017, she played the role of Meredith Whitcomb in the film The House of Tomorrow and made her directorial debut with the short film Don't Mind Alice, which she co-wrote and co-directed alongside Olivia Rosenbloom. The following year in 2018, Apatow starred as Grace in the film Assassination Nation. The film's director, Sam Levinson, subsequently cast Apatow as a series regular in his HBO teen drama series Euphoria, which debuted in 2019; where she stars as Lexi Howard in the series, a role that Levinson wrote specifically for Apatow. In 2020, she co-starred in her father's comedy-drama film The King of Staten Island, as the sister of Pete Davidson's character.

In 2022, a viral social media post by Meriem Derradji described Apatow as a "nepo baby" for her family connections in the entertainment industry. This led to the term 'nepo baby' trending on TikTok as users pointed out numerous other celebrities with similar backgrounds. The term attained greater notoriety following New York publishing a year-end feature that called 2022 "The Year of the Nepo Baby," with a cover depicting Apatow among others.

Apatow made her New York theatrical debut Off-Broadway in 2023, replacing Lena Hall as Audrey in a revival of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's Little Shop of Horrors, with a planned stint from February to April. The opportunity to appear on stage was available due to the delay in filming of the third season of Euphoria, with Apatow citing Little Shop of Horrors as an important musical for having "sort of introduced me to the genre as a whole" when she was a child. She subsequently extended an additional four weeks, through to the end of April. With her Little Shop run coming to a close, it was then announced that Apatow would join the West End revival of Cabaret from May 29, in the starring role of Sally Bowles. She completed her time with the show on September 23.

In April 2024, it was announced that Apatow and Olivia Rosenbloom launched a film and television production company titled Jewelbox Pictures.

Personal life
As of February 2024, Apatow maintains a residence in the West Village.